Anadon
Slated by Queen Alexandra for construction to begin in the year 1061, the city of Anadon was dedicated to the Queen's daughter, Ana. The oldest daughter of Alexandra, Ana was destined to be the next Queen, as she was arranged to marry Paul, who would then become the King. However, Ana was not keen for this way of life, bemoaning the lack of freedom of choice; and, in 1069, she fled the Kingdom with a pirate, to whom she would eventually be married.
Despite such a loss to Alexandra, construction on the city continued, as it would serve as another fortress for domestic strategic reasons.
Another purpose was served, though, as, in 1073, Terredon was attacked by another group of pirates. Parliament voted to move itself and the Crown to Anadon, where the new Palace and Parliament Building were completed by November 1073.
The Hobland War of Independence, 1076
In 1076, Queen Alexandra sent divisions of the Navy and Infantry to eliminate one of the key enemy strategic points in the Southeast Hobland colonies. As they landed, however, the Great Northern forces were ambushed by a "house cannon" attack, and were made to retreat. Between June and September, revolutionaries attacked a key Great Northern stronghold in what became the Battle of Myrre, which proved a great loss for Alexandra. With land lost and a high number of casualties endured, the Queen of the Great North sent a letter to the top revolutionary figures, indicating surrender and a call for counsel.
On 10 November 1076, the Treaty of Kortan was signed, in which all Great Northern forces were made to withdraw from the region, while all blue-diamond coal sand mines and resources were turned over to the new nation. For a compromise, a very small quota was placed as a limit for the precious fuel to be vended in any way to the Great North on a yearly basis.
Energy Crisis and Economic Downturn
The coal sand quota in the Treaty was around 25 percent of the supply to the Great North in previous years, creating a severe shortage. As a result, heating and transportation became extremely expensive, leading to the failure of businesses and the loss of jobs. As many Great Northerners fell into poverty, the Crown launched an emergency agenda in search for a new energy source. Many new ideas were generated as a result of this, but all were seemingly short-sighted, doing little to alleviate the circumstances.
A resource in particular brought into discussion during this time was hubstone shale. Initially found in Hobland and Tandeiyah during ancient times, hubstone shale was seen as something of mystery and wonder. The latest discovery of such a resource before this time was a very large reserve of it near Fort Norm in the late 900s, with a majority of it being underground. In the 1030s, numerous scientists, following a popular trend among their own scholarly community, published research documents suggesting its usefulness as an energy source. However, this was overshadowed during the times that blue-diamond coal sand reserves were plentiful. Furthermore, another wave of scientific studies conducted in the 1050s determined that hubstone shale served no useful purpose, even though the tools, at the time, were not yet developed to extract its energy. As a result, hubstone shale was effectively forgotten, as it occasionally became an item of youthful fashion, being crafted into jewelry and inefficient talismans.
Queen Alexandra: Death, Succession, and Partitioning of Overseas Land
In 1077, Queen Alexandra called for a Special Council with Parliament, citing that the Royal Treasury, due to the ensuing economic hardships, was approaching bankruptcy. Tax reform agendas fell short due to the notion that the number of businesses closing led to an absence of sustainable revenue, and that taxing a poor population would potentially lead to a coup. In the end, the Council came to a temporary solution: to sell overseas territories to wealthy Great Northern families. And thus, the Partitioning of Lands Act was passed.
Under this legislation, each overseas territory was put to auction and sold to the party with the highest bid. Such the purchasing party would govern the land as a semi-independent territory. Each territory would be granted a Queen's Mandate, in which each new land could exist as an independent country under a new government but had to abide by a few parameters. The most important parameters outlined in each Mandate were that each government had to abide by the Great Northern Bill of Rights and the Statute of Limited Authority (the equivalent of the Bill of the Crown Authority). Each new government was required to provide advice to the Great Northern Crown for the appointment of a presiding Governor-General, who would supervise the new government. Each Governor-General would do so by holding the government thereof accountable for adhering to the Queen's Mandate, and by approving the appointment of a successor to the territory's Chief of State or Head of Government.
With this arrangement, Queen Alexandra saw the selling of the Meredythian and Rim Islands between 1078 and her death in 1079. With the absence of Ana, it was the second oldest daughter, Sarah, who succeeded the Throne. Queen Sarah continued the Partitioning of Lands policy, selling the remainder of the Meredythian by 1080, the Canticulan territories between 1081 and 1083, and Tandeiyah in 1085.
William Jeson and Fort Norm
Taeac was an illegal spellcrafter fighting for Hoblandish locals in present-day Notulfa. In 1075, he and his followers were forced from their territory of command and traveled in ships to the area of Inland Sea coastline surrounding present-day Hasphitat. Here, they slaughtered a sacred den of bears, angering the local population of Jurango, who retaliated with divisions of warriors who defeated Taeac's forces and sold many of them into Wannonian slavery. Taeac followed the prisoners into Wannonia, where he helped many of them escape, retraining them and launching them as forces upon other plantations to rescue the remaining prisoners. In 1077, they traveled into Combria, then under the Kingdom of the Great North, and settled in Fort Norm, which was abandoned by this time. In Fort Norm, Taeac subjected his followers to serfdom and had them, with the use of spellfire, build brick structures in quick fashion, as the city of Pasiek was established. It was during this time that Taeac discovered a method of extracting energy from hubstone shale.
A Great Northern traveler came across this society en route and immediately dispatched a message of concern to Queen Sarah in Anadon.
William Benson was born in 1056 as the nephew of the infamous George Benson. In 1068, to remove the immense association of guilt, his family legally changed their surname from 'Benson' to 'Jenson'; and in 1075, William, himself, dropped the first 'n' from the name, changing it to 'Jeson.'
William Jeson received basic training, and, before long, advanced up the ranks of the Great Northern Infantry. However, it was not until 1077 that he received his first assignment for active combat: to scout out the call of concern regarding Fort Norm. Jeson immediately recruited a division of forces and traveled to Fort Norm, where he was captured by Taeac's forces. However, he used spellfire skills gained from the past to escape, and subsequently alerted his stationed forces, who then sent a message to the Queen. The Queen sent a division of the Navy up the river to Fort Norm, where they converged with Jeson's division and launched a coordinated assault upon Taeac, who carried out brutal resistance through intense spellfire acts, and initially inflicted high casualties. The Queen, expecting this, dispatched another Navy division to serve as reinforcements, and effectively forced Taeac's defenses into retreat. Before long, Fort Norm was surrounded, but Taeac refused to surrender. An assassin, though, ended Taeac's life; and Great Northern forces reclaimed the Fort.
After the defeat of Taeac, the Great North ended the system of serfdom but continued the buildup of Pasiek. In 1080, the nation of Wannonia blamed the Great North for Taeac's rampage and demanded payment in reparations. Queen Sarah refused such demands and began the building-up of troops and arms in Fort Norm, anticipating a great conflict.